The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-03-28
BILL NYE'S RAILWAY PASS.
Lines on Returning the Blasted Docu-
ment TO the Genial Givcr.

hfchis0n, I0pefd ana SANTA ne H. IT,, Topeka,
Kan.
DEAR SIR: | inclose herewith annual
pass No. q 035 for self and family over
your justly celebrated road during the
year 1887. l also return your photo.
graph and the letters you have written
me during the past five years. VIII you
kindly return mine? And so this brief
and beautiful experience is to end and
each OF rs mss, 90 his own way here
after.
Alas!
To you this may be easy. but it brings
pang to my heart which your gentle
letter of the 1st inst. cannot wholly
alleviate.
Whenever hereafter you look upon
this transported pass will you not
think of me? Remember that You have
east me from you and that am wander
ing across the bleak and wind-swept
plains sadly enumerating the ties on
my way to eternity.
do not say this to reproach you, for
~ fear that you care for another, and
so we could not be happy again togeth-
CT. But, oh! do you pause to fully
comprehend the pang it costs me to
return this pleasant-faced little pass
with its conditions on the backP"
Could you see me even now, as | write
these lines, turning away ever and
anon, laying aside my trembling pen
to 60 and sit by the CRATE and shudder
and weep and put out the fire with my
bitter tears, your heart would soften
and you would say: Return, o wand
efer, return!'
You do not say in your letter that |
have been false to you or that have
ever grown cold. You do not charge
me with inlidclity or failure to provide.
You simply say that it would be better
Tor each to go his several ways, for
getting that my several ways are pass
inc away, passing away
1t is all well enough for YOU to talk
about going your several ways. You
have every facility for doing so, but
with me it is different Several years |
ago large Northwestern cyclone and
myself tried 10 pass each other on the
same track. When the wrecking crew
found me was in the crotch OF but
ternut tree, with broken leg. Since
,kIai time have walked with great df-
iculty. and to go my several ways has
been very serious matter with me.
But do not want you to think am
murmur.ng. accept my doom calmly,
yet with slight tingc of unavailing re-
greet.
Sometime, perhaps in the middle OF
the dark and angry night, when the
cold blasts wall through the telegraph
wires and the crashing sleet rushes with
wild and impetuous fury against the
windows of your special car, as you lie
warmly ensconced in your voluptuous
berth and hear the pitiless winds with
hoarse and croupy means chase each
other around the Kansas haystacks or
shrek wildly away as they light out for
their cherries home in the Bad Lands,
will you not think of me as l grope on
blindly through the keen and pitless
blasts, stumbling over cattle guards,
falling into culverts and beating out my
rare young brains against your rough
right of way, will you not think of me?
/ do not ask much OF ou. but | do ask
this as we separate forever.
As you whiz by me do not treat me
with contumely, or throw crackers at
me when have meokly turned out to
let your naughty old train go bv. l
have always spoken of you in the high
est terms, and | hope you will do the
game by me. {
Life is short at the best, and it is I
specially so for those who have to !
Walk. Walking has already shortened '
my life great deal, and | wouldn't be {
If the exposure aud bunions !
Of the year 1887 carrie me oil, leaving {
a gap in American literature that will t
look Ike a new cellar.
Should any of your engineers or {
.rackmen find me frozen in a cut next 4
winter. when the grass gets short and v
the nights get long, will you kindly
lsk them to report the brand to your O
auditor and instruct him to allow ms v
amly what he thinks would be right' v
~